Dr. Chiaki T. Oguchi

International research collaboration on heritages

Associate Professor

Research interests

My main interests are rock weathering and geomorphological processes. This research can be applied to various fields such as stone deterioration of cultural heritages, durability of concretes, natural hazards, radioactive waste disposal, etc. However weathering often occurs over a long period of time, it occurs sometimes after very short time with irreversible consequences. It veils importance that human beings should be educated and consider our future lives.

Professional experience

October 1998: D.Sc. Institute of Geoscience, University of Tsukuba.

June 1997-March 1999: JSPS Research Fellow, University of Tsukuba

April 1999-December 2001: Research Associate, University of Tsukuba

January 2002-May 2004: JST-JSPS Research Fellow, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences.

International Collaborations

Collaboration works with GEGENAA, Reims-Champagne-Ardenne University (URCA), France

Associate Professor Celine Schneider visited Saitama University several times. She and her colleagues, Associate Professors Maxime Gommeaux and Patricia Vazquez, and students visited my laboratory and went out field survey together. They came here by awarding “Kanry Program” fund in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and in exchange, my students, one after another, visited GEGENA and studied there.

Orval Abbey Project

The new building of the abbey constructed nearly less than 100 yearsago is suffering from salt weathering, whereas the old building constructed at middle age does not. The reasons of this phenomena are mainly coming from material difference, i.e., artificial stones are used in the new abbey but natural stones are used in the old abbey. Old type cement, mortar or lime mortars are used in the artificial stones and this is the most possible reason of deterioration due to salt weathering. We already installed the environmental monitoring sites and collecting temperature and relative humidity data for a few years. Furthermore, we carried out several experiments using building materials such as durability tests and leaching tests.

Yoshimi Archaeological Site Project

Acidic sulfates such as aluminum sulfates and ferric sulfates are often observed on the wall of tuff or volcanic rocks in Japan. We investigated wall surfaces of an artificial cave dug from 1941 to 1945 in the Miocene tuff. The cave is located in the historic site of Yoshimi Hyaku-Ana which is ancient graves of 6-7 centuries. The cave was suffering from severe salt efflorescence and deterioration of its cause. Salts are much in dry winter but less in humid summer. We put some rocks on the floor and continued field monitoring to assess how the rocks will weather at the site.

Collaboration works with Menoufiya University, Egypt

Egyptian Archaeological Site Projects

Professor Gamal M. E. KAMH visited Saitama University as a JSPS fellow from the 4th of June 2012 to the 3rd of April 2013. His research theme here was “NEW STANDARDS FOR LIMESTONE AND MORTARS USED FOR CONSERVATION OF THE ARCHAELOGICAL SITES AT ARID, and SEMI-ARID REGIONS”. He investigated many stones used in various archaeological sites in Egypt ( i.e the deterioration observed at Sphinx).